Ready to finally use your 4G LTE Sprint smartphone on an actual 4G LTE network? July 15th is the date to watch, at least if you live in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, or San Antonio. Sprint will be rolling out their next-gen network in those five cities first and join the likes of Verizon and AT&T as the three main providers of LTE coverage in the States. More markets will follow as part of a nationwide rollout, though Sprint hasn’t given any timeframe.

Sprint once stood alone as the nation’s sole provider of 4G coverage, but that was at a time when the company was banking on WiMAX as the future standard. The rest of the world went with LTE, practically forcing Sprint’s hand as they shifted their WiMAX network to subsidiary networks and focused on building up a network based on the more widely used wireless technology. The LTE network upgrade is not without other benefits, which Sprint says should include improved 3G performance and reception as well as a wider coverage area. Read on for the full press release.

Sprint to Unleash the Speed and Power of 4G LTE in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City and San Antonio on July 15

ATLANTA (BUSINESS WIRE), June 27, 2012 – As summer begins to sizzle, Sprint (NYSE:S) CEO Dan Hesse today invited Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City and San Antonio customers to harness the speed and power of 4G LTE on July 15 and to further enjoy the top-rated customer satisfaction experience among all national carriers, according to the 2012 American Customer Satisfaction Index.

To better meet the growing voice and data demands of wireless customers, Sprint is building an all-new, nationwide 3G and 4G LTE network through the Network Vision program. This means that whether a Sprint customer is using a smartphone to share a picture or to check the Web, Sprint 4G LTE will make it faster. Coupling the speed of 4G LTE with the industry’s only truly unlimited data plan for smartphones makes Sprint the best choice in wireless.* Additionally, the new network provides significant enhancements to Sprint 3G service. Customers will experience better signal strength, fewer dropped/blocked calls, faster data speeds, expanded coverage and better overall performance as the improvements roll out across the country.

“The performance of both the 4G LTE and improved 3G networks are exceeding our expectations and we are pleased with the progress of the entire Network Vision program,” said Hesse.

With the launch on July 15, Sprint will have debuted 4G LTE to millions of people in five major metropolitan areas with more market launches in 2012 to be announced later this year. By the end of 2013, Sprint expects to have largely completed the build out of its all-new 4G LTE nationwide network – with an enhanced 3G network – covering 250 million people across the United States.

The Wireless Industry’s Most Customer-Friendly Data Plans

In today’s competitive wireless market, the value of unlimited has never been more apparent. Sprint’s Everything Data plan with Any Mobile, AnytimeSM includes unlimited data, texting and calling to and from any mobile phone in America while on the Sprint network, starting at just $79.99 per month for smartphones.

Over the past several years, Sprint has been working hard to deliver the best customer experience. Recently, the American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Sprint No. 1 among all national carriers and most improved in customer satisfaction, across all 47 industries, over the last four years. Building an all-new network is the linchpin to make Sprint the company customers want to do business with.

The launch of these metropolitan areas demonstrates the continued commitment by Sprint to invest in its network through Network Vision. For the most up-to-date details on Sprint’s 4G LTE portfolio and rollout, please visit www.sprint.com/4GLTE.

Several have posted tests from Dallas/Atlanta, showing 10-40Mbps, but more importantly Sprint’s LTE is getting 40-60ms latency, which is better than ATT/VZW LTE.

http://profiles.google.com/gremlyn1 Colin Burton

Let’s just wait and see how the network fairs when there are many more users on it.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Xorg-Kc/100000867435778 Xorg Kc

The latency won’t change due to network load. A smartphone doesn’t really need >4Mbps, but low latency will make a bigger difference.

http://twitter.com/Deztin Dez

Why is Baltimore NOT on this list!!??

bboyAndroid

Wonder how long it will take Sprint to get LTE out here in Mississippi. I’ll probably jump ship over to C Spire they have unlimited data plans that can complete with Sprint and they will have LTE and the SGSIII in September.

Daryel Villavicencio

Nothing west of the Rockies, figures. Considering I’m supposed to be in an “excellent” 3G according to Sprint’s maps and I’m constantly in 1X, or Roaming, or no service I doubt this will ever reach me in 2-3 years. Time to move on to AT&T or T-mobile.

garet

Ive been getting LTE in Chicago area speeds vary sometime 3 down sometimes 20+ down I guess that’s just because they are working on the towers ….last few days I have not gotten 4g at all wonder why

Jdog25

Meh

91firebirder

It’ll be curious to see how their 4G speed really compares to the other carriers in Atlanta. Their 3G speed or WiMax speed was not very good.

MarcusDW

SHOCKER! Kansas City will have all the LTE networks!! We’re usually last for a whole bunch of stuff. Not to mention we are getting Google Fiber.

KC was one of first 3G markets, one of first to get WiMAX, one of first digital cell markets, one of first markets to get cable modem in mid-90s. One of first to get over air HDTV. One of first to get Gbit. What are you talking about? KC is broadly known to get a lot of tech things first.

No_Nickname90

LoL!! The only Link I seen was Facebook, so I thought the app you were advertising was Facebook. =.P

It makes sense.

No_Nickname90

Yay!! Enhanced 3G speeds. Now I can actually USE Google Voice ryt after I flash a ROM. LoL!! Trying to play downloaded music over Sprint’s network has always been horrible.

Can’t wait to see how this turns out.

bboyAndroid

No Mississippi is the last to get anything Sprint has to offer. I had the EVO 4g when it came out now on the EVO 3d and still no WiMax 2 years later

http://twitter.com/fabricwarehouse Fabric Warehouse

What about Detroit??? We are still only on 3G aka Dial-up speed on Sprint…. please!!

Not in NYC? Makes perfect sense not to cover one of the most densely populated areas in the United States…

dawankler

That population density is a big part of why most carriers don’t lead with it. It’s better to tweak a launch on mid-density cities that have less interference issues from buildings, infrastructure and signal interference as well as smaller numbers of users per-tower. Working through those issues before pissing off the largest market tends to be a smart decision in the long run.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Xorg-Kc/100000867435778 Xorg Kc

The Sprint LTE rollout schedule is being tracked here. They plan to cover over 130M population with LTE by end of this year and the entire Sprint footprint by 2013. Then they’ll start rolling out LTE on 800Mhz which will significantly increase coverage.